| TO: | Honorable Dennis Bonnen, Chair, House Committee on Environmental Regulation |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB1742 by Giddings (Relating to urban land bank demonstration programs. ), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted |
The bill would amend Health and Safety Code to exclude urban land banks as responsible parties for enforcement actions or remediation costs for contaminants if contaminants appear to originate from an up-gradient source; if contaminants appear to have been present before the land bank purchased the site; and if the land bank could not have reasonably known about the contaminants at the time of purchase. The bill would amend Local Government Code to prohibit the agency from naming a land bank as a responsible party, under the conditions above, from which to seek reimbursement of remediation costs or imposition of enforcement actions. The bill would amend Tax Code to allow the act of acquiring, holding, and transferring unimproved real property under an urban land bank demonstration program to be included in the list of acceptable charitable functions which a charitable organization must perform.
Based on information provided by the Department of Housing and Community Affairs and the Commission on Environmental Quality, it is assumed that costs related to the duties and responsibilities associated with implementing the provisions of the bill could be covered by utilizing existing resources.
The bill would take effect September 1, 2007.
| Source Agencies: | 332 Department of Housing and Community Affairs, 582 Commission on Environmental Quality
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| LBB Staff: | JOB, WK, AH, KJG
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